


Let Me Take This

by Selcier



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Day 1: Mistake/Regret, I Love(d) You (obikinweek17), M/M, Mentions of Sexual Assault, Mentions of possible abuse, Slavery, god these poor sods, obikinweek17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-17
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-11-30 21:54:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11472432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selcier/pseuds/Selcier
Summary: Obi-wan accompanies Anakin to Zygerria as his slave as part of an undercover mission to locate a group of missing Togruta Colonists. While they are staying in the Palace, the Zygerrian Queen singles Obi-wan out. Obi-wan has difficulty dealing with the emotional repercussions of her insinuations.





	Let Me Take This

“You must be one of few slaves in the house if you’ve managed to stay alive this long. Most would have been driven to madness with jealousy at the way your Master looks at you. No matter what he claims.”

Obi-wan keeps his chin dropped, staring at his feet and the polished floor. He curses Anakin in his mind for leaving him here. Wasn’t there some sort of excuse he could have made to stay?

“I give you permissions to speak, slave,” the Queen says. She tilts her head, still holding up a gold chalice of wine. “Come here. I want to look at you.”

He shuffles forward, his hands clasped in front of him. The breeze from the open windows cools his skin in the warm mid-day heat. Despite his conservative clothes, he feels naked under her gaze without his lightsaber. Anakin hid them both with R2 before they left the ship.

The Queen drags one pointed nail down his chest when he stands close enough. Her claw catches on the short row of tiny buttons near his clavicle. “I do acknowledge what he sees in you although it runs far from my own tastes.” She swirls her finger around the loose hem of his sky-blue tunic and slides her palm down the soft cotton covering his thigh. “I hope you enjoy his attentions.”

Obi-wan forces himself to speak, his voice hoarse and choked. His act is only half a farce. “Yes, my Queen, I do.”

She sits back in her gilded chair, a pleased smirk on her face. She sips her drink and rests her other hand back on the armrest. Obi-wan’s muscles relax. They are the only ones left in the Throne Room after she dismissed first the court and then Anakin.

“Leave then, slave,” she says and Obi-wan hurries out, his cloth shoes silent against the smooth tiled floor.

Anakin apologizes later, back in the relative safety of their grand guest room; his face pinched and red. “I’m sorry Master, I shouldn’t have left you with her.”

Obi-wan smiles at him. “There’s no need, Anakin. I know there is nothing you could have done. This just reinforces our decision to leave Ahsoka back on the ship. This is no place for a padawan.”

Anakin flops back onto the large bed with little care for his ornate clothes. “Urgh, I could barely tell you about the ah...expectations of this mission, I could never tell Ahsoka.” He closes his eyes. “What kind of slave could she have been? A girl half my age…” he trails off.

Obi-wan sits on one of the low, lavish settees. “Nothing you need to think about now,” he says. His hands clench by his sides. “Although, the Queen seems to be under the impression that I’m more than a simple assistant.”

Anakin grimaces and rolls on his side so they are facing each other. “What did she say?”

“Nothing I care to repeat, honestly.”

Anakin swallows, his throat bobbing. “I have a feeling I know what it was.” He picks at the satin sheets with one gloved hand. “Uh, we should probably go with that.”

“Really Anakin, it hardly seems feasible. Why in star’s name would they think such a thing?”

“Your clothes,” Anakin mumbles. “They’re too nice.”

“What?” Obi-wan sits up straight and smooths his hand down his shirt. “You picked these!”

Anakin pulls himself up to sit on the edge of the bed. “Yeah, well, i didn’t want to dress you in rags.” He gestures at Obi-wan’s figure. “She thinks that I favor you and then well, you know.” His face twists like he swallowed something sour and he drops his face into his hands.

Obi-wan flushes and looks away.

They speak sparingly throughout the rest of the evening and only rouse themselves as the time for dinner nears. Anakin dresses in a rich tunic made from dark heavy fabric with his customary pants and boots. He looks away, his face red, when Obi-wan compliments him.

“Let’s get this over with,” he says.

Dinner evolves into a loud affair. Music and dancers fill the space with exuberant sound and activity while guests hollar over themselves and the musicians. Round after round of drinks send the attendees into a riot of eating and cheering as every new course is brought out.

Anakin sits near the Queen, surrounded by other dignitaries and slave owners. He’d swallowed down his disgust for the good of the mission and does his best to pretend to enjoy himself. The music does help even if the company does not.

Obi-wan kneels on the floor around the doorway from the main dining room with the other house slaves; near on hand in case their Masters summon them. They sit quietly, not looking at each other as they speak in hushed whispers. None of them are Togruta, however, and none of them seem to have any information on the location of the missing Colonists.

Anakin only calls for Obi-wan near the end of the spectacle. Obi-wan feels the flush of his anger before the communicator on his wrist beeps. Obi-wan steps out into the dining room with his head lowered and his body tense. Anakin motions for him to kneel beside the low couches around the table.

“Master Yun, as you can see, the Queen has exaggerated,” Anakin says over the brass of the music. His hands hold the back of Obi-wan’s neck steady, forcing him to look up at the guests at the table.

Yun, a sizable Mun, chuckles and raises his glass. Wine sloshes from the edge and onto his full plate underneath. “You are too humble, my boy! I’ve never seen such skin before.”

Anakin smiles, but Obi-wan can see through his charade to the tense edges of his mouth and the burst of shame in the Force. “You are too kind, sir.”

The Queen laughs then. “And you are too secretive. What exactly has this slave done to entice you so? Surely you wouldn’t be adverse to a display?”

Anakin’s metal hand tightens around Obi-wan neck but he chuckles and reaches out to kiss the Queen’s hand. She offers it to him, a pleased smile on her face. “Your Majesty, there is nothing this slave could tempt me with that would overshadow the joy of your company.”

She seems pleased at this and settles back onto her cushion even as the other guests in ear-shot laugh and slap Anakin on the back. He grins at them, a convincing distraction.

Obi-wan sits next to the couch for the rest of the meal and the entertainment that follows until his knees ache. His face is hot so he keeps it pointed at the floor. The comments about his person float into his awareness and are released back to the Force as if they had never been said.

When Anakin finally excuses himself from the table, Obi-wan’s legs almost fail him as he stands to follow.

“Open him up good for us!” Master Yun calls over the music as they make their way from the room. The crowd around him cheers again and toast the air.

There is little place to hide Anakin’s discomfort in the quiet of the corridor.

They step off into a side hallway before they reach their room. Anakin grabs Obi-wan’s wrist and pulls him into the shadows behind a massive decorative vase. They stand close in the gloom, Anakin’s anger unchecked.

“Master,” he says, “We should go back to the ship. We should never have agreed to this mission. I’ll tell the Council that they can shove it-” He cuts off, his head dropping and his emotions rolling a thick and tangled knot. “We shouldn't've come here.”

Obi-wan places his hands on Anakin shoulders. “Calm yourself, Anakin. No one was hurt tonight. They were teasing. It was all words.”

“That’s no excuse,” Anakin says, snapping. “They think that I’m some kind of- of monster and that you’re just a- You didn’t hear what they said before you came over. I couldn’t take it anymore. I was going to-”

Obi-wan interrupts him with a hand on his cheek. “You are a Jedi Knight, Anakin. And so am I. We’re endured worse.”

Anakin nods, his body still tense with anger. “Yes, Master,” he says.

That night, Anakin sleeps fitfully; only fully relaxed in the early hours of the morning. They’d only been given a room with one, but lavish, bed. Anakin wasn’t surprised but he refused to allow Obi-wan to sleep on the small couch or on the floor. And so Obi-wan ends up staring up at the ceiling as Anakin tosses next to him. It's too warm and moist in the room for anything more than light pants and a thin sheet.

When the first light of the sun turns the room into a grey watercolor, Obi-wan wakes to the sound of a soft knock on the door. He answers to find a thin human slave, no older than Ahsoka, bearing fresh water and a breakfast tray.

She looks up at him, flushing, as her eyes roam across his bare chest. He keeps his face neutral as her eyes dart from one battle wound to another. Anakin grumbles from the bed behind him drawing the slave's gaze to the messy sheets and Anakin's nude torso.

Obi-wan can barely hear her when she speaks. “Does your Master require anything else? I can bring you warm towels and potions. And,” she says, hesitating, “herbs for you. If you want.”

“Ah,” Obi-wan says, completely unsure of what to say. “That won't be necessary.”

She looks at his chest again, her eyes lingering on a lightsaber burn from Ventress that left a nasty raised welt across his ribs. “Did he do that? The cook says I'm lucky I'm ugly enough to be in the kitchens instead of in the pleasure houses.”

Obi-wan swallows, his throat as tight as his chest. “No, these aren't his doing.” He hesitates to give her any hope that the kitchens would be the best place. He doesn't have any hope for her.

Instead, he takes the heavy tray out of her grasp.

Was this the life Anakin was destined for on Tatooine? Obi-wan’s heart squeezes as the girl backs into the dark hallway and flees. To grow up into someone else’s toy?

He closes the door with the back of his heel and sets the tray down on the small table in the seating area. He looks back at the bed and Anakin’s mop of hair.

Anakin rolls over to face him, his eyes creased into slivers of blue in the dim light. “M’ster. What’s wrong?” He says, mumbling into the sheets.

Obi-wan crosses the room and sits on the edge of the bed, his fingers numb. “I’m sorry if I woke you, Anakin. Our breakfast has been delivered.”

Through bleary eyes, Anakin stares up at him. “C’mon, your thoughts are everywhere. Spill it.”

Obi-wan swallows. “I… I think I’ve had enough of this mission. Frankly.”

Anakin sits up, the sheet sliding down his chest. His mechanical arm braces against the soft mattress, his glove abandoned for the night. He reaches out with his other hand to smooth away a shock of hair away from Obi-wan’s face.

Obi-wan stops his movement, his own hand settling over Anakin’s in a tight grasp against his cheek. He pinches his eyes shut for a moment. “If we hadn’t of landed on Tatooine, would I have met you in these hallways?”

“Maybe,” Anakin says. HIs voice is low and calm in the midst of Obi-wan’s distress. “But you did. And I became your padawan. None of that happened. And none of it will happen now.” His thumb strokes over Obi-wan’s cheek.

Obi-wan relishes in the soothing balm of Anakin’s presence. But his mind is still hazy with sleep and his heart fearful. He feels very much unlike the Jedi Master he claims to be. He turns his head, his lips brushing across the palm of Anakin’s hand. The younger man smells hot, like a speeder seat that’s been in the sun too long. His hands are clean, the palms rough and calloused.

“Obi-wan,” Anakin says, his voice scratchy from sleep. He sits up farther and pulls Obi-wan farther onto the bed with his metal hand until he is nestled in the circle of Anakin's arms. “Master, let me take this from you.”

Obi-wan closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Anakin’s shoulder. Hands run down his sides and back and up over his neck into his hair with gentle pressure. He sighs, murmuring against Anakin’s salty skin and knowing that Anakin cannot see his real pain. He must not. “I don’t wish to let it go.”

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1: Mistake/Regret for the 2017 Obikin Week Challenge. 
> 
> selcier.tumblr.com


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